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EA Launches Ultima-Based Browser Game
On Monday Electronic Arts launched Lord of Ultima, a free-to-play, browser-based strategy game that's based on the Ultima universe. Quoting VG247: "Set in the new world of Caledonia, players start the game as conquerors raising an empire, and then move from developing a village to evolving it into a highly customized capital. Players can be peaceful merchants by trading resources over land or sea and using diplomacy, or become feared conquerors using armies of knights and mages to crush their enemies one by one in maniacal glee."
It comes complete with Natalie Portman.
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As someone, who was with the series from the very beginning (Yep, Akalabeth and all the spinoffs too.), I think I speak for all fans of Ultima when I say...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
That said, I feel this particular title should stay buried under hazy, but beautiful memories, as one of the precursors of RPGs, and a very good series of games. Reviving this as anything other than an RPG game dilutes it's essence - it's amazing storyline, great set of characters and innovative approaches to quests.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
if Lord British is not involved in the project it really doesn't qualify as a real Ultima for me. So it's merely an attempt to cash in on the Ultima franchise while it's still lukewarm. Oh, and by the way...
> feared conquerors using armies of knights and mages to crush their enemies one by one in maniacal glee.
Why... very Ultimish I would say... what happened to the eight virtues, making ethical decisions in order to become an Avatar (U4), resolving conflicts thorugh the use of peace and diplomacy (U6), etc...?
Just call it 'WOW in a browser'.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
Origin's motto was "We Create Worlds." I think EA's might as well be "We Destroy Them." The Ultima series was so masterfully crafted that I have shown it to hardcore Final Fantasy fans and have watched their jaws drop in pure amazement. I am not sure what others think about this, but I have noticed that just about every franchise that EA got ahold of due to acquisition has been adulterated in some of the most bizarre ways. I'm no longer surprised that even franchises acquired from Maxis are no longer worth keeping up with. Naturally there will be independent developers who will always fill the gap, but it is never good to see an astounding series go down the drain. I can only hope that gems such as Ultima are rediscovered by gamers and that they will begin to demand the kind of top-notch quality we expected in the 80s and early 90s.
Played for a while, until I clicked "Get diamonds" and was taken to a page to enter credit card details. With diamonds I could get a magical bronze hammer or something, which in turn would magically give me extra food, wood and stone.
So, if you're rich and like a game where real world money gives power, knock yourself out.
As far as I'm concerned AE can stick this game right up their butt.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
I have been playing this game for a few weeks now since the closed beta.
I can safely say that the game at this stage is no where near release ready.
Its definitely forced out of beta by some bean counter.
Heaps of bugs, even more then your average EA game.
No trading system. You can send resources but you have to trust the other party to send back what he promised. And you can't trade gold at all.
Graphical glitches galore.
Buttons to buy "power items" with real money everywhere.
The artificial restraints put in place to encourage you to buy power-ups are way to strict.
The ranking system only takes the amount of buildings you have into account. Nothing about army size.
Poor graphics that are not much better then place holders.
Having said all that, the game is still quite fun to play if you are in to this sort of game.
After you have your cities set up, a 15min gaming session twice a day is enough to keep playing.
So its perfect game to play on your lunch break.
If you want to play, don't make the mistake of building a castle in your first city.
You will get ripped apart by a large army within a day if you do.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
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Then you have EVE online where character evolves real-time regardless of whether you play or not. (or even whether you are subscribed if you queue enough stuff). It is also very economy-oriented game and majority of that action takes place outside gameplay time.
It kind of sucks because you can never, ever catch up to veteran from day 1. ;)
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Well, in a way you can. It only takes two people and 4-6 months of training one "class" of ship to really be able to punk all but the biggest and baddest ships out there. But with cloaks and such, it's easy to pick your targets. Obviously you're not going to street race some guy in a Ford F40 with your Civic, but that aging BMW might be possible to get close to with a few aftermarket mods...
In real terms, since the game itself is free to purchase, spend $40-60 up front that you would normally pay for the game itself on extra game cards. Use 2-4 of them to buy a 6 month or so old character to begin with. This saves you the initial grind for about the same cost and you can jump right into the game in hours instead of months. It's the initial six months that suck in the game. After that, there's much less that separates the older players from the younger ones.
NOTE - they recently changed it, though, so that unpaid/inactive accounts stop training immediately - they don't continue any more while you are away. This, as expected, has generated a huge storm of complaints, but they are turning a blind eye to it.
NOTE 2 - CCP, the company that runs the game are without a doubt some of the most anal and useless toads when it comes to customer service and bug fixes. They do what they want and simply never listen to the players or admit anything is wrong unless it's made major news. Just expect to play it as if support is essentially never an option and you're completely on your own. And I do mean completely. Think Wizards of the Coast support levels. Just don't even bother 99% of the time barring obvious stuff like getting stuck.
But the game *is* fantastic once you ignore the company's irksome nature. It's without a doubt the best online game out there because literally anything you want to do is allowed and possible as soon as you step out of the newbie areas. Make money, make a guild, screw players over, lie, cheat, steal, bribe, or be a good guy(are there any left?) and hunt these scum down. Whatever you want to do... the company in charge pretty much ignores it unless you're literally breaking the game or doing real-life illegal acts.
And that's why I still like it after all of these years. Most other games like it force you to be good, play along, and are as boring as a stick of chewing gum that you've been chewing for an hour. At least with this one you can head out to the bad areas and, well, BE as bad as you can manage to be. That's kind of refreshing, actually, given the idiocy and nannying that most games now suffer from.